Shooting Star
by hidingunderblankets
Summary: As Lucas sits in the Stadium bleachers and hopes that a friend will return from a mission, he spots a shooting star in the sky. Or so he thinks. [Giftfic for a friend]


The sun had began to set in This World, turning the sky red and the clouds dark. It had only fallen halfway below the mountains and the Midair Stadium had already gone vacant for the day. Wind blew trash around recently packed bleachers as the air got colder and sounds of crickets picked up.

However, the stadium still had a soul in it. Sitting twelve rows up in the bleachers Lucas, a small boy with blonde hair and dark eyes, had his head down as he kept his blanket wrapped around him. His face displayed worry and sadness and his hair blew in the wind. He stared at the floor aimlessly as he waded through the thoughts in his head.

Lucas kept thinking to himself. _When will he come back? Why has he been gone for so long? Going to stop Andross from hurting his friends doesn't sound like something that would take a week to do! Oh no, what if __he failed __and...__?_ He stressed over the questions as he replayed the memories of him and a blue bird looking up at a silver mask in the sky. Memories of the mask declaring his intent to hurt friends of the bird's. Memories of the bird saying that he had to leave and promising him that he'd be back soon. Memories of him flying off in his Arwing with one last goodbye through the cockpit.

The memories left Lucas in fear because the bird, Falco Lombardi, one of his closest friends, had embarked on a quest that he might not survive.

Lucas had waited for over a week now. Falco hadn't returned and he didn't know what was going on out there. He tried to stay positive. But his doubtful side tore him down each time. He tried to forget about it, but that failed. Stuck with only being able to wonder, he sat around, waiting.

Looking up at the sky, Lucas sighed heavily. If there was one thing that reminded him the most of this all, it was the stars about to dot the sky. He couldn't help it, and he remembered it if he hadn't already. He got reminded early today. And today, it bugged him bad. He stood up and tied his blanket around him, looking like he had a cape on, and began to amble, hoping it would help out somehow.

Lapping the bleachers, Lucas sifted through more memories. He recalled why him and Falco were even friends to begin with. He sighed again as he looked back at it...

_It all started when Ness became homesick and packed his bags. He asked Lucas if he would go home with him. But Lucas didn't want to leave. An argument broke out between the two kids, ending with Ness jumping on his cruiser ride home. Lucas begged him to stop but Ness ignored him._

_A few days after this friend's departure Lucas wandered the Ruined Zoo, something he ended up regretting. Flashbacks of him and Ness fighting Porky raced through his head as he journeyed through the old zoo. Later on, he crossed paths with a trio of teenage punks. One of the kids cracked a harsh joke about Lucas and the others choked in laughter. After that they began following Lucas around, teasing him and cracking jokes about his hair and, for some reason, calling him Justin. Thinking they'd eventually tire of picking on him, Lucas ignored them._

_But they didn't. Eventually Lucas looked for help, but everyone responded with "they're just kids." With no one to reach out to Lucas kept quiet, still hoping they'd quit. It was one day during a climb up Glacial Peak, however, that he couldn't take it anymore. As the bullies teased him, he tried to climb a steep slope. One of the kids joked about his mother, which angered him. It also distracted him. He lost his grip and landed on a sheet of cold, hard ice. Circled by the bullies, aching in pain and freezing cold, Lucas lost it. He was ready to use his PSI on the children when suddenly, someone shouted from above._

_"Hey!"_

_Looking up, Lucas saw Falco Lombardi in a winter coat, looking down from atop the cliff. He sported his trademark pose of crossed arms and a serious face. Lucas gasped and the kids stood dumbfounded, surprised to see of the best Fighters on the Smash roster. At least from their perspective._

_F__alco __hopped__ down and __stood in front of Lucas. He ordered the kids __to leave Lucas alone. N__ot seeing a reason to, the punks__ stood their ground. Simultaneously, they lunged at Falco. But they were no match for the Fighter. The avian beat the kids easily, only receiving a punch to the face from the one girl of the group. Fearing he'd attack them, they promised to never bully Lucas again and retreated._

Lucas returned to reality as he stepped on a banana peel. He regained his balance and stopped himself from slipping. He grabbed the peel, threw it over the railing and watched it fall into the darkness. Lucas guessed that the peel had been left by Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, the winners of today's Tag Team Tournament – they couldn't go a week without being scolded by the stadium staff for littering.

Lucas looked up at the sky and saw a few stars shining already. Upset by them, he exhaled. Looking closer, he spotted something. A small streak of light manifested and a shooting star emerged. It began to sail across the sky, leaving a small white trail behind. _Oh wow, a shooting star! Peach would love to see this. But she's probably asleep by now..._

He climbed up the bleachers and sat in the same spot as before, picking up where he left off...

_After scaring the kids away, Falco lead Lucas to a Fighter's Lodge, a place where Fighters could crash. When they arrived, a female staff member escorted them to a bedroom with a few beds inside. Lucas laid down in one of them while Falco went to the bathroom._

_Lucas found himself staring at the ceiling until a male staff member came in with a cup of hot chocolate. He put the cup on the nightstand and looked at Lucas._

"_Heard about what happened with those bullies, Lucas. Hope things get better for you. By the way, is it true that Ness left?" he said. Lucas answered with a nod. The boy looked away and slipped his hands into his pockets, letting out a breath."Oh... Well, I have to get going now. I hope things get better for you."_

_Th__e young man left the room, closing the door behind him softly._

_After the sound of flushing,__ the bathroom door opened __and __Falco reentered. "What happened to Ness?" he asked. __Lucas __didn't want to t__ell the story __at first__, but ended up __talking__. After all,__ Falco __was the one who __just__ scared th__ose__ kids away__. __He told the pilot about how Ness came down with a case of homesickness. __He told the part where __he and the boy__ got into an argument,__ then parted without a farewell.__ After __Lucas finished the story__, the room fell silent for a minute. __Falco_ _broke the silence __with a sigh__.__ "Looks like I'm the only one __who lost a __friend __recently.__"_

_It turned out that Falco had just gone through the same issue himself. Him and Fox McCloud had a fallout – Fox had began taking a trip down a horrid path filled with "substance abuse", something he didn't mean to say. In spite of his efforts, Falco couldn't stop him. Fox became so annoyed by Falco that he declared their friendship over one day when he started asking him questions. He hadn't seen Fox since, nor could he find him. But he heard news of him from people – however, none of the news could help him figure out where he had gone off to._

_For the rest of that day, Lucas and Falco wandered the lodge, chatting and drinking hot chocolate. During a walk around the rooftop Falco brought up the bullying issue._

"_So, those kids... they've been messing with you for a while now, haven't they? Yeah I've seen brats like them before... idiots. I think Fox said something about them once, like they were messing with someone he knew I think. I saw them back at the peak and thought that maybe they were those guys he was talking about. I saw them following you. But I didn't think they were actually picking on you until I heard what they were saying... Sorry for what happened. Look, if it makes you feel any better I'll stick around with you and make sure they don't try to bug you again, okay? Not that I have anything else to do with Fox gone and all... So how about it?"_

_After some thought, Lucas said yes._

_After they left Glacial Peak, the two attended Crazy Hand's monthly music festival in the Wilds. There they saw countless musicians, duos and bands hoping to get big. For the first day, the two didn't speak much. At least not to each other. Falco ran into a trio of teenage musicians who were big fans of him. The kids hung out with them, which kept Falco busy. Lucas tuned out their chatter as he couldn't understand what they were talking about for the most part._

_When it got dark, the kids left and Lucas and Falco crashed at a motel. The manager, a Super Smash fanboy in his forties, gushed over them visiting and gave them a room for free. Lucas and Falco gave the man looks. But they weren't complaining._

_The second day turned out more buzzing than the last one. Both in talking and the music. The crowd had grown much larger, and they found themselves pushing through oceans of people just to get around. Most of the talking came from Falco, who felt awfully chatty that day. They talked here and there about a few things, but ended up being not much above small talk with Falco as the one starting most of them._

_Lucas and Falco talked more with each passing day, learning that they had a lot in common in terms of songs they enjoyed. And as the days went by, it stretched beyond that. They had many other things in common. Same books, same televisions shows (minus the more mature ones Falco didn't mention), same games. Lucas couldn't believe he and Falco had so much in common. He never thought they'd get along very well when he made the bodyguard deal. When he met the bird during the Subspace Emissary he felt like he'd be a jerk to him if he tried to talk to him._

_Towards the end of the music festival as he laid on his bed, he thought about it all._

"_Wow I never thought we'd have so much in common! When I agreed to let Falco be my bodyguard I didn't think it would go like this. Maybe we could actually end up being friends? I mean it would help us both since I lost Ness and __he__ lost Fox... poor Fox. Why did he have to start abusing substances...__W__hat are substances __anyway__?"_

Lucas asked Falco that question the next morning. The bird answered _"I'll tell you when you're older."_

Lost in flashbacks, Lucas didn't notice Pikachu, a yellow mouse Pokémon with red cheeks and a zigzag tail, and Red, a boy with a scarlet cap on his head, pass by. They rushed down the bleacher stairs, their eyes locked on the shooting star in the now violet sky. They had spotted the star and wanted to get a good look at it before it left.

When they reached the bottom of the steps, they gazed at the star. Red reached for the camera in his backpack while Pikachu stared at the stellar object with twinkling eyes. Red readied his camera and pointed it at the star. As he tried to get in the center of the photo, he noticed something – it looked like it was getting larger. The Pokémon Trainer's eyes widened as he processed what he was seeing. _What in This World? __Is the star g__etting bigger__? _Red turned to Pikachu, who looked like he was in a trance. _Looks like I won't be __able to__ a__sk__ Pikachu __about this__..._

After watching the star for a bit, he felt sure that he wasn't losing it – something was up with the star. He continued observing it as he tried to figure out what was going on. _Something just can't be right. Shooting stars do not get bigger..._ And then it hit him. _Wait a minute, it's not getting bigger, it's getting closer...Why was that so hard to figure out?_

Meanwhile, Lucas began to feel tired. He yawned as his eyes grew heavy. _I can't sleep on the bleachers, I might roll off __and hurt myself... _He tried to get up. But the sleepiness, the warmth of his blanket, and the chilly air overrode his judgment. He curled up on the bleachers, wrapping his blanket around him and tucking his feet in. As he laid there, more memories flooded his head...

_After the festival Lucas and Falco ended up just traveling together. Even when they heard that the punk kids had taken a spacecraft to another realm, they stuck together anyway. The two hung around one place for a little while, entertaining themselves with whatever they could find and crashing at the local Fighter's Lodge, before hitting the next._

_During the time between then and now, Lucas ended up becoming best friends with Falco. He couldn't explain how it happened – it just did. Falco had pretty much became his Ness and he'd become Falco's Fox. A roadside comedian once told them that, and Lucas went with it. Falco, however, didn't like it, along with every other joke the comedian cracked._

_Lucas remembered some of the adventures they had. There was the trip to a treasure-filled part of the Cave. They had so much fun, even though they got beat to the loot. There was the swim down the Forest river after their raft collided with a sharp rock. By the time they reached the shore, it was midnight. There was the time the ground caved in on them and they landed in the chamber of a sleeping tentacle monster in a pink dress, grasping a giant Star Rod. It was asleep until Lucas tripped on his shoelaces. And then there was the time Falco accidentally threw spaghetti at Master Hand at the SSE Anniversary at Hand Estate. Master Hand became angry and had them removed._

Lucas smiled at the fun they had in the past. But the smiling turned to cringing and whimpering as he looked at the present. He cracked his eyes and looked at the sky again. There were more stars than before and the sky had turned black. He also saw the shooting star that looked bigger than he remembered. _Hey, wasn't that... star smaller last time I looked at it? I could have sworn it was tiny._

Gazing at the star, he remembered something he'd once heard. If one were to wish upon a shooting star, they'd get their desired wish.

Suddenly, his head became fuzzy and he mumbled something.

"I wish for Falco to come back home."

He let out a deep yawn as his eyes shut again. He fell asleep and began to snore.

Red heard the snoring and looked Lucas' way. He saw him sleeping, but he didn't feel like bothering g him. He turned away and got back to the star. Watching it grow slowly, he tried to guess where it was going to land. _It probably won't land very far from here. _The star soared in a slow and steady pace across the sky, just as it had been since it entered the atmosphere. But suddenly, it began to change its course. The star had been soaring in a straight path. But now it began making a plummet to the ground. Red's eyes widened. _Why did it do that?_

He watched the star sink in the sky as he tried to precisely guess where it might land. _Where's it going to land now?_ He spent a minute thinking it out and when he finished, his eyes widened again. _I... __I__ think it's gonna land in the Stadium! _From what he calculated, that's what it looked like. He stood up straight as he watched the star get closer to him and Pikachu.

When it came close enough, Red heard something. Aircraft sounds. _Is __that__ a plane I hear__? _The trainer listened closely to the sound. _It can't be coming from __that. _He looked closely at the star, squinting his eyes as he tried to get as clear as a look as he could. He also continued listening to the sound. Taking it in for a bit, he couldn't help but feel he'd heard it before. He tried to remember where and could only recall something about a smaller ship used by a few of the other Fighters.

Suddenly, the star began to not look like one. Red had seen shooting stars up close. Shooting Stars were meteors, chunks of debris from space that had entered the atmosphere. What he saw didn't look like one. It looked like a space fighter...

* * *

Red didn't know how right he was. The shooting star wasn't actually a shooting star, but a fighter craft. The atmosphere had began to burn the craft, wrapping it in a cocoon of fire. Despite having been falling for so long, it hadn't suffered much damage.

Inside the fighter, the person piloting it rose his arm and grabbed at a lever on the control system. He slowly pulled the lever down and a screen began to flash red and display images of the aircraft from different angles. A large piece of text popped up on the screen, reading "Warning" in upper case.

"Warning," a monotone female voice warned from a small speaker, "Landing systems have been compromised. Repeat, landing systems have been compromised. Estimated time of crash to surface; one minute. Please prepare for emergency ejection."

The pilot stared at the screen and sighed. His lifted his arm off the lever and hovered it over the other controls before him as the warning message repeated itself. He pressed a small button on the far right and pressed a few bigger ones on the opposite side. The screen discontinued flashing and an image of an aircraft seat and paragraphs of text next to it appeared.

Down on the ground, Red glared at the falling object that had gotten much closer. After getting an even closer look, he realized he was right. As he stared, he felt like he'd seen the spacecraft before – the shape and size of it looked vaguely familiar. _I swear I've seen that kind of ship before. Don't a few of the other Fighters own ships like that one? I think it was the anthro ones?_

Red suddenly noticed how close it looked like it was going to land from where he and the others were. He thought it out again and realized that it was about to land extremely close to them if it didn't fall on them. He quickly turned to Pikachu, who still gazed in a trance-like state. He rolled his eyes. _You'd think the veterans would be more sharp about __things__._

Back in the cockpit, the pilot reached under the arm of his chair as the female voice said a different message. The glass on the cockpit began to crack and the light engulfing his ship grew stronger.

"Remaining time before surface impact; thirty... twenty-nine... twenty-eight... twenty-seven... twenty-six..." it notified. The pilot slid his finger across the underside of the chair arm until he felt a few square buttons. He pressed them in order and the voice stopped talking. Another piece of big text popped up on the screen, reading "Emergency ejection activated."

The pilot and his seat popped out of the cockpit of the fighter just before it hit the battle stage in the center of the stadium. A parachute opened from the top of the seat and it began to float back down to the ground. The fighter exploded on impact, sending debris everywhere. Red and Pikachu (who snapped out of his trance when the fighter landed) gaped at the mess as the pilot descended. They looked up to see the pilot still in his chair. He unbuckled himself and Flashed over to the bleachers, landing in between the two Fighters. The pilot was Falco Lombardi.

The avian noticed Red and Pikachu and looked at both of them before he began to saunter up the bleacher stairs.

"I knew people would miss me, but I didn't think they'd be waiting for me up until this hour," he told himself. Red and Pikachu rose brows at Falco. _When did you even leave? _Red looked back at the fighter wreckage, remembering where he'd seen it from.

As he climbed up the steps, Falco spotted someone sleeping on the bleachers. As he got closer to him, he realized who it was – not by his looks, but by his snoring. Lucas. _What's he doing here? _He approached Lucas and crouched. _He wasn't waiting for me up here, was he? __Well I can't blame him. Kid was probably worried to death about me._

He stood up and cautiously picked up Lucas. The boy had a fierce grip on his blanket and Falco felt that he didn't have to worry about him dropping it. He put Lucas on his back, who wrapped his arms around the bird's neck, and made his way to the exit. Red and Pikachu watched as Falco left, wondering why he put Lucas on his back – they didn't know they were friends.

_I'm not even going to ask._

* * *

Falco walked down the dirt trail that lead outside the stadium. He stopped at the sound of an explosion and looked back to see a mushroom cloud in the stadium. He watched it rise into the sky as he thought to himself that he'd need to go ask for another Arwing from Crazy Hand – thankfully Master Hand didn't deny him Fighter services during the anniversary incident. He turned around and continued walking.

Lucas stopped snoring for a moment as he made a weak smile and murmured something. Falco heard Lucas himself and smiled too.

_Glad to be home._


End file.
